


reach in and pull the dark out of me

by sidonay



Category: Until Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Character Interpretation, Angst, Character Study, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Insomnia, Mental Health Issues, Minor Violence, Post-Game(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-30
Updated: 2017-05-30
Packaged: 2018-11-06 15:51:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11039367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sidonay/pseuds/sidonay
Summary: “Do you know what I think about more than anything else? About that night?”Sam doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to talk about it and she knows it’s hypocritical. (Maybe, maybe not. She was justthinkingabout it, keeping it to herself. She wasn’t trying to share with the class.) She considers pretending that she hadn’t heard him and hope that he’ll just drop it but there’s no one else in here but them.





	reach in and pull the dark out of me

**Author's Note:**

> I recently rewatched a playthrough of this and, well. This happened. Normally, I’d want everyone to live, to be just a bunch of decent kids who played a mean-spirited prank (that they regret) but I wasn’t exactly going for ‘happily ever after’ this time. I wanted to play around with the idea of them being fundamentally bad (and, in Mike’s case: unstable) people forcibly put into a ‘survive or die’ situation (since you can play them that way if you so choose) and what they’d be after it was over.
> 
> I apologize in advance if I get some story elements wrong. I’ve only watched one playthrough and all other bits and pieces I’ve gathered are from clips and things I've read.

It’s three in the morning and, unsurprisingly, Sam can’t sleep.

The diner is just off the highway and there are nicer ones closer to her family’s home (she’d been in school, tucked away in a dorm but you don’t just go back to that, no matter how brave of a face you put on so she’d taken a year, moved back into her childhood bedroom; her parents were happy to have her ( _after what you went through, Samantha, you need us_ ) but she felt like they were jamming a pillow over her face ( _don’t leave, don’t go for so many runs, it’s not safe_ , as if there really was some maniac that hadn’t been captured and had followed them down, was still aching for them). There are nicer ones that are closer but they were all too isolated, shrouded by trees, too far from any sort of street.

Here, the place was empty but it was bright, it was warm and, if she stared out the window, she could watch the cars and study the few lights in the mattress store across the wide roads. She sipped her burning hot coffee and read the hand-painted signs over and over until she had them memorized (if you bought one, you got the second one half off, except the word ‘off’ was almost gone, scratched by wind and debris, made it look like you’d only get half a mattress instead. Chris would have tried to make a joke out of it but Chris wasn’t here. He wasn’t here sitting across from her, wasn’t  _here_ in the grand sort of sense either.) What had she been doing then, at the same time as now? She couldn’t remember. Maybe running around a basement in her towel, still assuming that her friends had simply pranked her by stealing her clothes. (What was it with them and pulling each other’s legs? You’d think, at some point, they would have learned.) She laughs but she’s not entirely sure why.

“What’s so funny?” Mike asks and she turns to look at him. She forgot he was with her, forgot she had sent out a mass text to the others ( _anyone else awake? I’m going for coffee_ ). Mike had been the only one to show. She hadn’t expected that; it wasn’t as if the four of them didn’t talk, didn’t see one another (four, there were only four and, sometimes, Sam found it hard to believe that eight of them had gone up there and half had been left behind), but, with Mike, it was always during the day. She had no idea what Mike did at night, where he went. She’d tried to ask but he’d brush her off or simply focus his gaze on something in the distance, a look in his eyes like he was listening to something she couldn’t hear. If she were a stupid girl, she’d almost think that madness was contagious.

“Nothing,” she says. Mike taps his fork against his plate, doesn’t hold it with the hand that only had three fingers, pie crust crumbs bouncing. Something moves out of the corner of Sam’s eye and she freezes, holds herself motionless before realizing what she was doing, lowers her shoulders, lets out her breath. She turns her head slowly, sees it was just the waitress cleaning an already sparkling counter, moving her hands because there were people here, she had to look busy for them and Sam wants to tell her that she doesn’t care, she’ll be here awhile and if she wants to read or sit, it would be okay. She _wants_ to but she can’t talk with her heart in her throat so she drinks her coffee instead, laughs again but this time it’s nervous, forced.

It had been worse in the first few weeks after; the first time it happened (the first time she was _aware_ of it) she had been in the kitchen waiting for water in the electric kettle to boil and her father had entered the room so quiet, shuffled in behind her (in her blind spot) and then said her name. Instead of screaming, fighting, she had gone so completely still that, later, her father would say that he thought she had spontaneously died. He’d asked what had gone through her mind then, why she did that. All she could remember thinking was _they can’t see me if I don’t move_.

(She’d asked Mike and Emily if they did it, too, (not Jess, she had been stuck in the mines for hours, didn’t know about the monsters as well as the others did and Sam hated that she was _jealous_ of her for that, even knowing what she had been through on her own). Mike had said _yeah_ and left it at that. Emily asked her to please stop trying to talk to her about what happened, for the love of god, Sam, leave me alone. She _said_ that, but she still answered Sam’s texts, still got lunch with her sometimes. Sam would never quite understand her and she’s not sure she ever wants to.)

If Mike notices her reaction, he doesn’t mention it, says instead after a couple minutes of near silence, the only sounds the dull rush of cars outside and the rattle of someone working:

“Do you know what I think about more than anything else? About that night?”

Sam doesn’t want to know, doesn’t want to talk about it and she knows it’s hypocritical. (Maybe, maybe not. She was just _thinking_ about it, keeping it to herself. She wasn’t trying to share with the class.) She considers pretending that she hadn’t heard him and hope that he’ll just drop it but there’s no one else in here but them.

“Hmm?” She tries anyway. Mike frowns at her but then their waitress is coming over with a carafe, asking if they want a refill and Sam almost mouths _thank you_ to her as if the woman had done it on purpose (like she could sense things were awkward, that she could hear Mike’s question and was doing Sam a favor) but, instead, Sam just lets her top up her mug and then shuffle away. The interruption hadn’t done anything to dissuade Mike from continuing and he accepts Sam’s noise as her encouraging him to continue. Honestly, Sam wasn’t sure why she expected anything different.

(She hadn’t been this cold before it happened. She used to be patient and kind but then Josh did what he did and then things just got even more grim from there. You don’t walk out of that an unchanged person. You either blow yourself up, let all the crazy out, or you close yourself off the best you can. She had chosen the latter.)

“I almost shot her.” _Emily_ , Sam thinks. _He’s talking about Emily_.

“But you didn’t,” Sam says, opens a lukewarm container of half-and-half. Almost killing someone wasn’t nearly the same as going through with it. She’d say _just ask Ashley_ , but there’s only so many times you can ask a gravestone questions before you realize it’ll never answer back. (They had come downstairs—Ashley and Mike—without Chris and all Ashley could say was that it had been ‘too late’; Sam had glanced at Mike who had subtly shaken his head and that had been enough. When the detectives had asked her about Ashley’s burned body in the lodge, about what happened, all Sam had said was that it had been too late. _It wasn’t on purpose_ , she’d tell the therapist later, the one that her parents made her go to even though she kept insisting she was fine. _I didn’t murder her, I just didn’t know she was still in the lodge. It was an accident. A horrible accident. I’m a_ pacifist _for crying out loud_. But the fact that both the detectives and the doctor even brought that possibility up made her wonder. They were probably just doing their jobs, she figured, but still.)

Mike has a look on his face as if she’s just _not getting it_. Maybe she isn’t. Maybe she never has; they’ve had this conversation before (it wasn’t like he could talk about this with Emily; Jess, apparently (according to Mike), didn’t want to hear about it). Just like the other times, Sam tells him what she always assumes he wants to hear: none of them knew what was going on, they were paranoid and, in the end, he hadn’t pulled the trigger and that’s all that mattered.

Instead of saying _you tried to stop me though_ and _Ashley was the only one who planted the idea in my head and after what happened with Chris, I should have known better than to listen to her,_ he tries to chew on fingernails that weren’t there and then leans forward, rests his arms on the tacky tabletop, lowers his voice.

“I didn’t pull the trigger,” he says. “But I _wanted_ to.” Sam blinks at that, subtly shifts her gaze to where the waitress was but she made no indication that she overheard anything. Sam should be appalled. She should shake her head, remind him he hasn’t been sleeping (she doesn’t know that for certain, although he definitely _looks_ exhausted). _You were scared_ , she should say. _You weren’t thinking clearly_.

“Why didn’t you?” He doesn’t answer her question right away.

“I don’t know,” Mike says. “And that’s almost worse, isn’t it? Not knowing.” He lifts his hands, palms up, as if he were shrugging. “I can’t even say it’s because I cared or because she was begging me not to. _I don’t know_.”

“Mike,” Sam says and then hesitates, reaches over and puts her hand in one of his. He stares down at it, doesn’t hold it but doesn’t pull away. “Mike.”

“Sam,” he responds, smiles very lightly and she tries to return it, takes her hand back. Once upon a time, she thought she was good at comforting her friends, good at talking them through their distress but now she’s not sure anymore. ( _I thought we had a connection_ she remembers saying once.)

“It’s okay,” she says eventually. “I think we’ve all wanted to kill her at some point.” The suddenness of it, the almost sheer _absurdity_ of saying something like that in response to what Mike had just confessed to her makes him laugh—a real sort of guffaw—and he sits back on his side of the booth, stretches his legs out. He’d cut open a little bit of himself to her, revealed a darkness in his chest, and she’d made a joke in return. What else was she supposed to do, though? Call him a monster?

 _I’ve seen monsters_ , Sam thinks. She can still hear them screaming sometimes when she was alone.

Besides, Mike’s the closest thing she has now to a best friend. What good would it do her to push him away? (Maybe a lot, actually. It certainly seemed like the universe took some sick pleasure in killing the people she was closest to.

 _Not the universe_ , a voice says in the back of her head, _just the mountain_.)

“So that’s it,” he says. “‘It’s okay’.” 

“It is,” Sam says. “I mean, do you still want to?”

“Do I still want to— What? Do I still want to kill her?”

“Yeah.” Sam drinks her coffee.

“Would that make it less okay?” Sam says nothing to that. “No. No, I don’t.” There’s a way he says those words, though, that makes it seem like there’s a ‘but’ coming. It takes awhile for it to get there. “But I kind of wish she hadn’t—” He doesn’t finish, sits forward again, elbows on the table and his face hidden, briefly, in his hand. “I’ve never really _wanted_ to hurt anyone, you know?”

“Except for that night,” Sam reminds him and Mike stares at her for a few seconds.

“If I had— What would you have done?” What would she had said to the police in the morning he means, is what she figures he's trying to ask. Or, maybe, what would she have done right then and there, after it was over, with Emily’s blood splattered on the cork board behind her. She chooses to focus on the former.

“If nothing else changed? If Ashley and Chris and Matt and Josh had died. If it was just you, me, and Jess?” Sam asks, waits for Mike to nod. If she and Mike were the only ones who knew. Sam looks out the window. There’s someone moving now in the mattress store and she idly wonders if it’s a burglar. (She might just be seeing shadows. What could a place like that have worth stealing?)

If she told the truth, if the police believed her, in the end it would have just been her and Jess. Would they be sitting here at some strange hour talking about the dead, talking about ‘what ifs’? If it had just been her and Jess, Sam decides, she might as well had walked away from the mountains with nothing. Jess hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen what Sam and Mike saw, hadn’t done—

 _Would I really have lied_ , she asks herself, _would I really have covered that up just so I wouldn’t have to deal with this horror practically on my own?_

“I don’t know,” she answers honestly and then repeats something Mike had said almost moments before: “That’s almost worse, isn’t it?”

“Jesus Christ,” Mike says. “We’re a fucking mess.” He tries to gnaw on his missing nails again. Sam doesn’t understand why he won’t chew on the fingers he _does_ have, why he won’t just switch to the other hand. She doesn’t remember him doing that before, wonders if its his brain attempting to remember that something used to be there. Or she just never noticed. Maybe he always bit his fingers when he was stressed, she just never saw him this bad. She hadn't really known him very well until recently.

From what she’s heard tonight, it’s possible she doesn’t really know him that well _now_  either.

“No kidding,” she says. “For what it’s worth, though, I think you _think_ you wanted to. But I don’t think any of that's true. Your head’s just a little screwed up. Mine, too, you know?” If she really believed that (any of that) or just wished she did, it didn’t matter. It’s just the kind of thing you’re supposed to say to your distressed friend at three in the morning in the middle of an empty diner. That’s all. Mike thanks her but it sounds like he’s pitying her. She should be angry about it but she’s too tired. “Look, do you want to get out of here?” His eyebrows rise and then furrow. He very nearly smiles. “Not like _that_. I just don’t think I can sit in here anymore.”

“Where?”

“Somewhere else. Not here.” She drains her mug. “I need noise.”

“My parents aren’t home,” Mike says and it’s Sam’s turn to pull a face at him. “I have a key. They have a stereo.”

“Okay,” Sam says. “Okay. Sure.”

 

& & &

 

They’re standing in the driveway, the asphalt still wet from a rain shower earlier that evening but neither of them are moving. Sam had a sudden question buzzing in her head as she followed Mike in his car, followed him to his parent’s home on a deathly quiet suburban street and she thought about swallowing it but she couldn’t and so here they were, not budging, not speaking.

Instead of answering, he asks her something else in return. Her ears start to ring and she hears screaming.

“Yes,” they say at the exact same time. It’s the first absolute either of them had given each other that night, probably in the two months since the mountain.

It doesn’t make her feel better. Not what she says, not what she hears. She feels sick but that just might have been from too much coffee on an empty stomach.

 _At least I know_ , she thinks and she can somehow see it on Mike’s face, too, even though it’s partially obscured by shadow. _At least we both know_.

 

& & &

 

“You were wrong, by the way,” she says later, “We both were.”

“About what?” She doesn’t respond because she’s pretty sure he knows exactly what she means.

**Author's Note:**

> I didn’t go full “darkest timeline” here even though, one day, I would really like to. My decision of having Chris, Ashley, and Matt dead are purely for the sake of the story and not because I hate them.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr (@anthonycrowley) or ask in the comments if you’d like me to explain anything. title from [this poem.](http://medeae.tumblr.com/post/114264263752)


End file.
